The Ressurected
by PreciousJax
Summary: *Complete* After an accident, Max dedicates her life to honoring the man she loved and lost. But when the truth comes out, she finds out that the past five years of her life have been a lie. A lie that almost costs Max her life.
1. April Showers Bring May Flowers

Chapter One: April Showers Bring May Flowers  
  
April 9, 2019. A day that would change all their lives forever. A day that started out as any other in rainy Seattle, Washington, yet ended in a tragedy that had the magnitude to leave to even the strongest weak, crying, suffering. A day that would push one woman on the course to her destiny. A day that would push one man away from everything he held dear in his life. An April day in rainy Seattle...  
  
Max Guevara stood at her locker inside the Jam Pony building, grinning like an idiot. Even the fact that Normal was behind her bitching and moaning about every little thing couldn't ruin her mood. She was humming softly to herself, as she tossed her belonging into her bag.   
  
Original Cindy stared at her from a distance for a moment. This was so completely and utterly out of character for her best friend. Cindy walked over and placed a hand over Max's forehead. "Nope, no fever. So explain to Original Cindy why you're in such a good mood. You and your rich boyfriend bang the gong last night?"  
  
To Cindy's surprise, Max just laughed good-naturedly. She didn't even correct the 'rich boyfriend'. "No, I fell asleep on his couch watching movies."   
  
"And...Original Cindy can tell when her best boo isn't producing the truth. Not only did you not come home last night, you were late to work. Explanation." Cindy demanded.  
  
"I fell asleep, when I woke up, Logan insisted on feeding me before he'd let me leave."   
  
"Whatever, spill it Max."  
  
Max hesitated before she spoke. "Well, when I was carrying the breakfast dishes into his kitchen, let's just say we ran into each other. Lips first." With that she slammed her locker shut and walked off to make her next delivery.  
  
Cindy smiled after her. "It's about freakin' time!" She shouted after Max.  
  
Two Hours Later  
  
Max and Cindy were walking out on their lunch break when Max's pager went off. Rolling her eyes Cindy muttered something about short leashes as Max grabbed the pager off her belt loop. "Hmm... It's not Logan. He's the only one who ever pages me in the middle of the day." Cindy leaned against the wall as Max went over to the phone. She could only hear Max's end of the conversation, but it was informative enough.  
  
"Hey Bling...How'd you get my pager number..." Cindy watched Max pale several shades, even from the distance. "What?....What?" Max asked, her voice shaking. She dropped the phone without hanging it up, turning and rushing out of Jam Pony. Cindy rushed after her. "Boo! Boo!" She called as Max ran past her. "Max!" She repeated as she grabbed her arm. "What happened?"  
  
"Logan was in a car accident. It's serious." With that she wrenched her arm free and exited Jam Pony, breaking out into a full run.   
  



	2. The Aftermath

Chapter Two- The Aftermath  
  
Max stood outside Logan's apartment, staring at the grains of wood in the door. Taking a deep, yet shaky breath, she dug the key Bling had given her out of her pocket and opened the door. Letting the door swing freely open, she stood where she was and studied the scene.   
  
The piles of open files lying on various tables. Max walked over and ran her hand over one. The half full coffee mug, now stone cold. Max could envision Logan sitting in his wheelchair at the table, sipping at his coffee absently as he scanned files and talked to an informant simultaneously. 'Logan is the king of multi-tasking' Max thought with a small smile. Then her face fell. 'Logan was the king of multi-tasking.'  
  
Max recalled her conversation with Bling, the conversation that had sent her life into a tailspin…  
  
'They…they think he took a turn to fast, and the road was wet. He lost control.'  
  
Suddenly feeling dizzy, Max stumbled to the one place she knew she could feel comfort.   
  
'The gas tank ruptured…there was nothing they could do'  
  
'No! No! You're lying!" Max shouted, violently shaking her head.  
  
'I'm sorry, Max. He's gone." Bling broke off, his eyes shining with tears. She turned and fled the room, not looking back, running from the truth. Logan was gone.   
  
Max fell into Logan's bed, burying her face in his pillow, sobbing. His scent still clung there, the woodsy smell of his soap. Max inhaled it, choking on tears. "I'm sorry." She said aloud. "I'm sorry I never told you how much I loved you."  
  
Then she let herself fall, fall headfirst into the darkness.   
  



	3. The Breakdown

Chapter Three- The Breakdown   
  
For the first two days after Max had learned of Logan's death, she refused to leave his room. Cindy had found her later that night, curled up in a tight ball, deeply asleep. Since then, she hadn't eaten, hadn't changed her clothes. Cindy, Kendra, and occasionally Bling, all took turns sitting with Max. They were all afraid to leave her alone for more than a few moments.   
  
Max's moods changed quickly and violently. One minuet she'd be sitting upright in bed, dreamily staring out the window, smiling as she told a story about her and Logan's time together to whoever was in the room at the time. Then she'd suddenly trail off mid-sentence. Then she'd drop her face in her hands, and sobs would wrack her body so hard, that when Cindy or Kendra held her, they feared she'd break. It was the first time that either of them had ever seen Max as fragile as she was.   
  
A few hours before the funeral, Max became eerily quiet and equally still. Kendra had to dress her, and take lead her out of the apartment.   
  
Max sat silent and unmoving throughout the entire service. Max might have been there in the most literal of senses, but she was most certainly not there mentally. She stared blankly ahead, not really seeing anything. Logan's family and various friends gathered around the casket as the priest led them in their final prayer.   
  
They lowered Logan Cale's casket in to the ground on a sunny April morning, next to his mother and father's graves'. One of Max's few coherent thoughts that day was about the irony in the weather. One of the brightest, warmest, sunniest days that spring was the darkest day in her life that she could ever remember, she thought as she watched the only man she would ever love get placed into the ground.   
  
One by one, people walked up and dropped a handful of dirt on top of the cherry wood casket. Max was last, as Kendra and Cindy each supported one of her arms and helped her to her feet. Max leaned down and picked up a clump of dirt. She crumbled it in her hand and let it rain down. She stared down into the vast blackness of the grave, before turning and walking away from the cemetery, away from everything.  
  



	4. The Breakthrough

A/N: Well, areny you guys lucky, i am posting three chapters in one day! Expect the next one in a couple of minuets.  
  
  
Chapter Four- The Breakthrough  
  
With the permission of Logan's family, Max took on the responsibility of making arrangements for Logan's belongings. They told her to do whatever she wanted with all of it, it was completely up to her. Max was sure it was because they didn't want to deal with the stuff themselves, so they more than happy to pass the tedious responsibility on to someone else.   
  
But to Max the job wasn't tedious. Bling commented to Cindy that this was how Max was probably dealing with her grief.   
  
The first thing Max did was the packing Logan's clothes. For hours she sat pulling one shirt out at a time, recalling times when she saw him wearing it. The shirt he was wearing when she kissed him outside the cabin. The jacket he was wearing when he stood for the first time after the transfusion.   
  
She went through each room slowly and methodically. It took three weeks of her coming over directly after work and sitting up all night, sorting through his stuff. The one room she had yet to set foot in since the accident was his office. She wasn't sure if she could handle his office, his computers.   
  
She put it off as long as possible, but one Sunday night, she opened the door to his office. As if testing herself, she ran her fingers over his desk, leaving trails in the thick layer of dust. There were the little notes that Logan always left for himself scattered across the room. More Eyes-Only files were sitting in piles on the corners of tables and the desk.   
  
Max looked at the keyboard and could clearly envision Logan's nimble fingers flying over them.  
  
She stared at the phone he'd been on as she waved good-bye on that last day she'd seen him.   
  
Max starred at the cameras set up across the room. Logan had changed and saved so many lives with his Eyes-Only work. His only mistake was letting it consume him.   
  
Then Max thought of all the lives that would be lost because of Eyes-Only's demise. It made her feel ill, all the corruption that was Seattle's government, which were the people that were sworn to protect.   
  
Suddenly, a thought popped into Max's head, swirled around her system. Suddenly Max smiled. The pain and suffering of the last three weeks dulled for a moment as she grabbed the phone. "Bling....I know it is 2 am....I don't care, you need to get over here as soon as you can, I need to talk to you about something."  
  



	5. Reborn

  
  
Chapter Five- Reborn  
  
Three months after Logan's death, with the help of Bling, Max made her first Eyes-Only broadcast. The whole city of Seattle was buzzing about the new dark-eyed female that had replaced the blue-eyed man. It had taken a while to convince members of the informant net that she was for real and wasn't trying to uncover them for there contact work.   
After deciding to take over Eyes-Only in April of 2019, Max's very first act of business was to quit her job at Jam Pony. Then much to all of her friends surprise, she moved into Logan's apartment, living by herself for the first time since she'd moved to Seattle.   
For the first year after she'd taken over Eyes-Only, she was doing it to honor Logan, to keep his memory alive. Then slowly, inch-by-inch, it became a battle that she was fighting for herself. She once commented to Bling, who was more of a partner in Eyes-Only that an informant, "When Logan died, in a way, I did too. Then when I re-started Eyes-Only, I was reborn."  
Gone was the old Max who cared only for her self. Born was the new Max, a more serious Max, who never gave up a battle.   
As she became more adapt at using Logan's computers, Max surpassed what Logan had ever hoped of accomplishing. While he had still been Eyes-Only, the cable hack had only been along the west coast. Now it was throughout North America, much of Europe, and parts of Latin and South America. Whenever Max did a hack she had to do it several times, translating it into several languages. But she never let it consume her, the way Eyes-Only had to Logan. He'd believed that saving the world was everything. Max still hung out at Crash with the Jam Pony crowd. Cindy knew of Eyes-Only and had turned out to be a valuable informant when it came to distracting people while Max broke into places to get evidence and information. Cindy was just to loud for people to be able to pay attention to anyone else.   
One by one, Max tracked down each X-5. Through various sources, she was in constant contact with all of them, now more than ever.  
In July of 2021, with the help of the rest of her brothers and sisters, Manticore fell. Lydecker ran like hell out of the country, his legs firmly tucked between his legs. With the government backing pulled and the facility completely destroyed, the X-5s no longer had to run. Most of them became informants in the Eyes-Only informant net. That was one to the main reasons they had become so successful. It helped having eight or nine genetically enhanced killing machines backing you up.   
Zack had settled considerably. After the threat of Lydecker and his evil henchmen were eliminated, he moved to Seattle permanently. The stick up his ass had been swiftly eliminated after Max gave him an ultimatum. Learn how to relax or get the hell out. He even had a girlfriend now, a sweet girl name Paige. Paige was a tiny little thing, barely clearing five foot, yet she had black belts in various forms of martial arts, and stood up to Zack whenever he went off on his 'military man' tangents.   
Max sat lounging around her apartment, reading the file on the Delaney family crime syndicate, music pumping out of the stereo system behind her. If all went well at tonight's party, Max would have enough to do a hack and bust the hell out of the people.   
  
It was 2024, five years after Logan's death. Eyes-Only was flourishing, Max was as content, and everything was well.  
  
  
  
Meanwhile...in San Francisco  
Logan Cale stepped out of the airport, smiling softly at the area around him. It was nice to be back in the States after five years of running away from it.   



	6. 

Chapter Six - The Article  
Logan Cale sat comfortably on the chair on the terrace of his hotel room. He was enjoying her first morning back in America, even if it wasn't in the city of his choice. It felt nice to be back in the States for the first time in five years. He was flipping through a Seattle Post he'd bought on impulse at the airport. He hadn't even glanced at it after he'd walked into his hotel room and fallen face first into the bed and not moved for a while after that. It was hell getting back in the West Coast zone after spending a year in London. Now as he sat in the warm sunlight of San Francisco, sipping coffee, he grabbed the paper and sat down to see what Seattle was up to.   
When he opened it to the second page, he just about choked on the bagel he'd just taken a bite of.   
'Eyes-Only Hack Results in Arrest of Slave Trading Ring'  
"What in the hell?" Logan muttered aloud as he read the brief story again. On impulse he grabbed the society page and on seeing the front page of that, he choked all over again at the main story's title.  
'Mysterious Max Attends Opening of Children's Theater'  
He stared dumbfounded at the color picture of Max, her hair shoulder length and somehow straightened so the edges looked razor sharp. She was smartly dressed in a scarlet business skirt and jacket, which was fully buttoned, the collar of her white dress shirt pulled out and over the collar of the jacket. She hadn't smiled for the camera, and the picture had obviously been snapped as she walked into the building. Her hair was longer now; she looked all around differently, as if her attitude and aura had changed.   
Finally breaking his eyes away from the picture, he read the article.  
'Max Guevara attended last night's charity function to benefit Seattle's Orphaned Children Foundation. This was the first event that Miss Guevara has attended in several weeks, and when asked about this, she stated, "Nothing else interested me."   
When asked what she wearing, she replied that she "Hadn't the slightest idea." Attending with her, was a young woman who calls herself 'Original Cindy.' She was, luckily, more talkative than Miss Guevara. Yet, the manner in which 'Original Cindy' delivered this information was not appropriate to be printed in any tasteful magazine. The basic gist of what Miss Cindy said was that Miss Guevara cares about children.   
It is in the opinion of this writer that Max Guevara is a welcome reprise from the stereotypical chilly social life, and as an openly proud informant of the elusive Eyes-Only, we welcome her, and all of her contradictory nature, into Seattle's social life.  
Miss Guevara is rumored to be attending the Delaney Family Spring Ball tomorrow night.'  
  
The article went on the explain Max's mysterious background and the rumors circulating about her. Logan snorted as he read the article again. It was so obviously and typically Max. Yet only he saw the irony in the fact that Max, the only woman he would ever love, had kept alive the one thing that had driven him away from her.   
Logan then decided that maybe it was time to pay a visit to Seattle, take in the sites, drop by South Market, and come back from the dead. You know, the usual.   



	7. 

  
Chapter Seven- The Party  
The giant ballroom of the Delaney family mansion was filled with people, silk clad elbows brushing together and air kisses being passed merrily all over the room. Max socialized properly, but internally, she winced every time of the snobbish men and women of the grabbed her arm and asked there opinions on this and that. Max was known to be opinionated which had its advantages and its disadvantages. It was good that people weren't shocked by her outburst, which could definitely have its negative effects on Eyes-Only. It was bad because people always wanted to know her opinion on every damn thing, which annoyed the hell out of her when she was trying to get some freakin' work done. She had gotten the signaled her close to twenty minuets ago that it was all clear, and if she didn't make her move soon, the opportunity would be lost. She untangled herself from a young man who thought he'd see if her could cop a feel. When she not so politely stepped on his foot (ooppss! Looks like I stomped on your horny ass foot, in my heels. Sorry!), she stalked off.   
"Three minuets and counting." She said to herself as she pushed her way to the back exit. Weaving her way through crowds of people, then slipping discreetly out. She rounded the house, jogging despite the fact that her slim heels were sinking into the well-manicured lawn.   
She rounded the corner and checking all around her, smoothly jumped up, landing on top of a gardening shed, which was right under the window of Rodney Delaney's home office. If anyone would happen to walk by right now, or simply glance outside in her general direction, it would be interesting trying to explain how she managed to end up on top of a fifteen foot high roof in a six inch heels and a royal blue silk dress, and not getting a spot on said dress in the process. Max smoothed her skirt as she crouched down to pick the lock of the window. It was a Mickey Mouse lock really, and took Max all of five seconds to pick the lock, and but the wires so the alarm system wouldn't sound. She pushed the heavy widow up and slid into the room, rolling as she landed. She quickly shut the window, scanning the area around the lawn, making sure no one had spotted her.   
When a light turned on behind her, she whirled.   
"I always thought you looked good in blue." Logan said with a mischievous grin.  
  
  
A/N: I bet I am going to be getting some intersting reviews for that cliffhanger. Hmmm...ya'll get Max's reaction tomorrow. 


	8. 

  
Chapter Eight- Frozen Ice  
Max stood, her head spinning, not one rational thought filtering through the empty mass that her mind had become the second Logan had flicked the light on. He was sitting comfortably in Delaney's chair, leaning back with his feet propped up on the best, his arms crossed behind his head. He was wearing all black; black pants, a snug black turtle neck sweater, and a black leather jacket. The only thought that ran through Max's head, strangely enough, was 'He got new glasses.'  
Logan sat where he was for a moment, before rising out of the chair. He slowly walked around the desk and stood in front of Max. "Hi, Max." He said softly.   
Suddenly, Max whirled into motion. Wordlessly, she whirled away from him, and stalked to the door. Logan took a running step after her, grabbing her arm. "Max, wait--" He was cut off as Max turned back to him. "I suggest you let go of my arm." She said icily. Logan was about to protest, but she wrenched her arm free and walked out the door, her heels clicking on the marble hallway as she walked away.   
People in the hallway stared at her as she walked down the stairs, wondering how she was came out of a room they never saw her go into.  
Max resisted the urge to run. 'Don't make a scene. Don't make a scene.' She repeated over and over again, like a chant, as she weaved around people to find the exit. A young woman stopped her as she made a beeline for the door.   
"Jules, I've got to...ah...go. I'll call you." She said as she rushed past her. Julia stared after her quizzically. She'd never seen Max once get flustered in the three years that she had been working as an Eyes-Only informant. Yet she watched Max exit Delaney's office through the door, which wasn't planned, then run out of the building. Julia turned to see a man with spiky blonde hair, dressed in all black, staring after her.  
  
Max ran into the parking lot, frantically searching through her small handbag for her keys. She hit the 'unlock' button as she stumbled closer to the dark purple BMW Z-3 she had treated herself to after Eyes-Only had gone international. She slid into the car, started it, and whipped it into gear in one fluid motion, desperate to get the hell out of there.   
  
Logan made it to the ground floor in time to see a sports car peel rubber on to the road. He'd expected Max to be pissed as hell. He expected her to throw things, scream, and make a scene. He never saw the icy disdain coming till it slapped him in the face. Walking to his own car, ignoring the fact that thirty or so people had trailed out of the building to see what was going on.   
  
Max made it three steps inside the door to her apartment, without breaking down. Of this she was proud. She dropped her keys blindly, heard them hit the floor with the ring of metal against the hardwood, then she stumbled and fell, curling into a tight ball, once again falling into the darkness. 


	9. 

Chapter Nine- Right Hook  
Logan drove blindly around the city, not really knowing where he was going till he was there. He stood outside Bling's townhouse, wondering how he was going to take the fact that he was back, and not dead at that. Hoping that this was still Bling's house, Logan checked the mailbox just in case.   
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. A few seconds later, the door swung open. Bling stood there, his eyes wide, his mouth moving, but no sound coming out. Then Logan's head snapped back as Bling's fist connected with his left eye.   
Logan stumbled back, one hand covering his eye, one hand grabbing the railing so he didn't fall down the stairs. "Obviously, your not dead. After what you did to everyone, what you did to Max, I wish you were."  
With that Bling slammed the door, leaving Logan standing outside the door, mouth hanging wide open, his eye throbbing in pain.   
  
There was only one person he could turn to now. Original Cindy's. And he hoped to god she didn't have anything sharp at her place. 


	10. 

A/N: Ok, I know that I didnt explain why Logan left in this chapter, but it will come out eventually, so dont flame me!! Lol, I hope you guys like this chapter, I know the other one was pretty short, but...not much I can do...I do have this story in its interity written, as I do with the other stories (Into the Void, Freindly Rivalry, Some Kind of Intuition), so you dont have to tell me to keep writing, they're all done...  
  
  
Chapter Ten - Rational Explanations  
When Cindy opened the door of her apartment about a half hour later, it was safe to say that she was slightly shocked. But she didn't show it in the least. She had her cordless phone in one hand, tapping the antenna against her cheek and one hand on her hip. "Well I wasn't expecting you."  
"Huh?" Logan asked, perplexed.   
"You weren't who I was expecting. Seeing as you've been DEAD FOR FIVE YEARS!" Cindy advanced forward brandishing the phone over her head like a weapon. "You broke my boo's heart. Give me a reason not to break your face." Logan held his arms in front of him backing up. "Cindy, I cant take any more people hitting me."  
"That is ORIGINAL Cindy to you. Only my friends get to call me Cindy. You, your not my friend. Because, for one thing, YOUR DEAD!" With that she raised the phone again. "But ORIGINAL Cindy sees that someone has already b*itch slapped you, so ORIGINAL Cindy will let you inside. But if ORIGINAL Cindy does not get a rational explanation on why I should change the fact that you've been resurrected, you will get sent to your grave AGAIN, by this phone." She then smiled sweetly, which scared Logan even more.   
She spun on her heel and followed her into the apartment. "You can't tell Max, ok. I am going to tell you the whole truth, but you can not tell Max." Cindy walked back into the room carrying a washcloth with some sort of cream on it. "Keep this on your eye." She said as she slapped it on his face, with a little more force than necessary. He winced. "Ouch, damn it."  
"Don't you swear at me. Don't you even swear at me. Bling called me a told me that you were here. And obviously you've seen Max. You'd think you were doing the right thing by seeing her first right?"  
"Yes, I had to--"  
"Don't speak. You just keep quiet." Cindy said to him, waving the phone at him.   
"Do you know what you did to her? Do you know how much you hurt her?"  
"I knew she'd be hurt--"  
"I said be quiet. You say you knew you'd hurt her. Then why the hell did you go play dead for five years?"  
"I had--"  
"Don't talk! Don't say a word. You don't have to right to talk at all. Oh, and I see you have the ability to walk, which isn't a trait you possessed when you DIED. So what was this some trip so you could get your legs back and start over. And leave Max behind?" Cindy waited a moment. When he didn't answer, she smacked him upside the head with the phone. "Hello? Response please?"  
"You just told me not--" Logan said rubbing the side of his head.  
"Shut-up. I said don't talk. Wait no; I want this rational explanation, in a real quick fashion too, because just looking at you is giving me the urge to smack you with my phone again. But I wont, because I just got it."   
"Are you going to hit me again?" Cindy smacked him with her hand.   
"Didn't I just say no."  
"But you just...oh never mind." Logan said exasperated. "Listen to me. This is what happened, ok?" Logan related the story, explaining everything that had happened the day of the accident.   
"Oh, damn." Cindy stood silent for a moment. "What you did still ain't right. There were other ways." She sighed and dropped the phone onto a table and sat in a chair. "How'd my Boo take seeing you?"  
"Well, once she got over the initial shock, she all but ran out of the room. Next thing I saw was her peeling rubber out of the parking lot."  
"Well, what did you expect? She finds out that the man she has been mourning for five years isn't really dead? That he deceived her the whole time? You should consider yourself lucky. Hell, I'd have kicked your ass then and there."  
"See that's my point." Logan said rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "I could have dealt with that. I could have dealt with her screaming, throwing stuff, smacking the hell out of me, but deep down inside being happy to see me. But she didn't even want to be in the same room with me, she was disgusted by me." Cindy stood and patted him on the thigh. "Don't worry, we all are." She snagged the phone and dialed it one handed, sitting back in her chair. "Max, if you don't pick up this phone in five seconds, I am coming over there and bringing the wrath of God with me." She paused. "Fine, expect me in twenty." She hung up the phone and looked at Logan. "I've decided I'm going to help you. Obviously, you had good intentions when you hurt everyone who loves you. But despite the fact that you hurt Max, I'm helping you." She grabbed her jacket off the hook next to the door. "Thanks Original Cindy."  
"Oh, you can call me Cindy again. Ok, I'm worried, because before you showed up I was calling her cell and didn't get an answer. She always answers her cell, so were going over there and finding her." 


	11. Return to Hostility

--Note From Jaci: Ok everyone, i know I had been updating everyday, but two things happened. One, I got really busy with softball, then some family issues, and finals week is next week, so I go sorta sidetracked. Then the A: drive on my other computer broke and not everything is saved to disk, but as soon as I can get it all on disk, ill start posting more again. I am going to add at least 5 chapters tonight since I havent updated for weeks. Thanks for bearing with me!   
Jaci--  
  
-----  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Eleven- Return to Hostility  
"Listen to me," Cindy said as she drove Logan's car through the early morning traffic. She had insisted on driving, citing the fact that Logan had the black eye from hell and he probably couldn't see a thing. Since she was right, he handed over the keys to his rental car. "You are to stay out of site, let me talk to her first. She's going to be pissed enough with out you screwing things up even more with half assed explanations."   
When Logan noticed what street they were on, he turned to Cindy in shock. "Where does Max live?"  
"In your old place. Didn't you know that?" Cindy asked glancing over. Logan didn't answer as they were pulling up in front of Foggle Towers. "Ok, just stay in the hallway, let me check if the coast is clear." Cindy said as the elevator rose to the top floor.   
Cindy knocked on the door. "Max, its me, I know you're in there. Open up! Fine, be like that, I'm using my key!" Cindy shouted when there was no answer. She rooted around her oversized bag before snagging a set of keys. She slid one into the lock and opened the door with a loud bang. Logan stood outside the door, scanning the rooms. It may have formerly been Logan's apartment, but it was defiantly Max's now. The furniture was all set up differently, new colors everywhere. There were live plants all over the room, everything from small potted ferns to flowering vines, even a large tree in one corner. There was a large, complicated looking stereo system with a large stack of CD's next to it, and to Logan's amusement, a state of the art laptop sitting closed on the coffee table. He was just about to step forward and investigate, when he heard Cindy's frantic shout. "Oh god! Logan help me!" Logan bolted around the corner, and the sight he found made his heart jump into his throat with terror.   
Max, still clad in her silk dress and heels, was crumpled on the floor. The side of her face was pressed against the hard wood floor, her hand fisted next to her cheek. Cindy had dropped her bag and was at her side, turning Max onto her back. Logan slid across the floor, falling to his knees next to her. "Help me get her into bed." Cindy ordered. Logan quickly gathered Max into his arms, lifting her easily off the floor. As he gained his feet quickly, moving towards the door that used to lead to his bedroom, and what he assumed to be hers. A few steps from the door, Max stirred, making a low sound in her throat.   
  
Max knew she was dreaming. If there was one thing she learned since Logan had died, it was that when you have the opportunity to live in a dream, take it. So when she felt Logan's arms around her, she did the one thing that felt natural, and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest and inhaling the scent.  
And when she registered the scent as soap, sweat, and man, her eyes flew open.  
She swung out, hitting Logan in the chest as she rolled and fell to the floor. "Don't touch me, don't you lay a finger on me." She shouted as she jumped to her feet. Logan moved forward starting to speak, but when Max mad a sound somewhat similar to a growl, he decided against it. For those few seconds that Max had curled up in his arms and wrapped her arms around him, he'd thought that maybe, just maybe she would be willing to let her hostility go eventually. Logan stared after her helplessly as she stomped her way into the bedroom, slamming the door with a force to rattle the pictures that were hanging on the nearby walls.   
Cindy stared at his pathetic expression from behind. She laid a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Logan, but what did you expect? You've betrayed her in the most serious of ways. It is going to take a miracle to have her forgive you without a fight."  
"I'll do anything. You don't understand Cindy, I would do anything for her."  
"Well, seeing as you did fake your own death for her, I believe you. Let me try and talk to her."  
Cindy retreated into the darkened bedroom, leaving Logan to sink onto the couch. He closed his eyes, the deafening silence overcoming him. 


	12. The Rules

Chapter Twelve- The Rules  
Cindy entered the room, closing the door behind her with a controlled click. Max had pulled off the dress and was pulling jeans when she whirled. "And what the hell was that? Why did you bring him here?" Max shouted as she buttoned her pants.   
"Max, relax for a second."  
"Relax? Relax?? You are telling me to relax!" Max screeched as she wrenched open her closet door, grabbing a white sweater of a hanger. "You are telling me to relax. Whose side are you on, anyways? You're my friend. He broke my heart, and your telling me to relax." She ranted incoherently as she pulled the slim fitting sweater over her head.   
"All I am saying is that you can't deny this forever. You can't run out of the room in a huff whenever he enters the room. He's alive, and you've got to deal with it."  
"Ok, so he lets me believe he was dead for five years and you want me to welcome him back with open arms?" Max asked as she walked to her mirror and jerked a brush through her hair.   
"No, I'm just saying that maybe you should listen to him. Maybe he had no choice to do what he did."   
"Or maybe he never cared about me at all." With that she pushed out of the room, Cindy trailing behind her.   
Max stomped over so she was standing in front of Logan, who was asleep or something close to it. She ever so politely kicked him in the shin with her bare foot. He sat forward to see an irate Max standing over him, hands on her hips.   
"You listen now and you listen closely. I have five rules for you." With that she held up one hand. " 1-2-3-4-5." She said counting off fingers. "That's five for the amount of years that you let me think you were dead. One, I don't want to see you. Two, I don't want to hear from you. Three, I don't want to hear * about * you. Four, I don't want you talking to your friends. And Five, I want you to know one thing. You would have been better off staying dead. When you were dead, everything I did was for you. To honor you, to keep your memory alive. But then you came back, and now I don't have any respect for you in the very least. It just shows that you don't have one once of moral integrity what so ever. Now, I have work to do, so you can kindly go to away. Go to Europe, go to Asia, or go to hell, I don't care, but get out of my apartment, get out of Seattle, get out of my life." 


	13. The Deal

Chapter Thirteen - The Deal  
Logan sat silent for a moment after Max had stormed off. She could be heard slamming around the kitchen. "Well, that went well." Cindy said from her perch in the doorway. She was doing her best not to laugh at the expression on Logan's face. It was really quite priceless.   
Logan reached into the pocket of his jacket, intending to grab his cell phone. 'Maybe Max is right,' He thought. Then his hand brushed over something, and a plan formed in his head that made him grin.   
Cindy watched the 'I'm Evil And Plotting More Evil Doings' expression creep over Logan's face. She'd seen in it the mirror to many times not to recognize it on his face. "Ah Ah Ah," She said waving her finger. "What are you planning? What are you going to do to my boo?"   
Logan grinned evilly and walked into the kitchen. Max was standing at the coffee maker as it dripped fragrant liquid into the pot. "Max, do me this one thing." Logan said as he leaned against the doorframe. Max pulled the pot off and drained it into a mug. Brushing past him she sat down at the dining room table, opening her laptop and tapping in the first of many passwords. "Max..." Logan said in a singsong voice. She, again, didn't acknowledge his presence. "Well, please, tell me before I go, what are you doing for this Eyes-Only hack?"  
"For your information," Max said precisely. "I have to find a new way to nail Rodney Delaney's ass. I would have had all the information I needed if you wouldn't have showed up and ruined my chances of getting the disk."  
Logan slipped his hand into his pocket and silently produced a small, black disk, holding it by the tips of his fingers.   
Max's hands stilled on the keys as she saw the disk out of the corner of her eye.   
"You mean this one?"  
Max bolted up out of her chair, causing it to tip over behind her. She made a grab for it, but Logan backed up a step, pulling his arm back so Max's fingers narrowly brushed the disk, but didn't grasp. "Nope, sorry. Not going to be that simple." He said, still backing up as Max advanced, looking like she was about to pounce. "Give me the disk Logan." She said sternly. "Give it to me now."  
"I have a deal for you."  
"You can not toy with this Logan. If I don't have that disk I have no evidence against Delaney, and he'll keep on killing innocent people, execution style."  
"Oh, but like you said Max, I don't have a single ounce of moral integrity, so the guilt trip isn't going to work. Want to hear the deal?"  
Max made another growling sound. Logan wondered how they'd explain a dead guy showing up dead in the Pacific Ocean.   
"Pronunciate your words, love. But I'll take that as a yes." Max advanced again; the look on her face would shatter glass. "I'll give you the disk, but I get to work with you on the hack."  
"Absolutely not. No. No. No. I have been working for three months on busting this a*sshole. You are not barging in here and thinking you can just take over."  
Logan stuck the disk into his pocket. "Ok then, I'll be leaving then. Bye Cindy!" He said as he walked towards the door. Cindy kept a straight face as she mentally congratulated Logan. That was just sweet. Freakin' sweet. Mentally, she counted down.  
3......2......1...  
"Wait." Max said, obviously regretting the fact that she had to say it. Chalk one up for team Logan.   
Max crossed her arms and tapped a foot as she considered. "There are a few conditions. You will stay out of my way. You will stay out of all of my friends' ways. Don't talk to anyone, don't bother anyone."  
"Oh, joy. I can hardly wait to get started." Logan said sarcastically.   
Mentally, Max was asking her self what the hell was she getting herself into,  
Mentally, Logan was rubbing his hands together, plotting his next move.  
Mentally, Cindy was placing her bets. 


	14. The Silent Treatment

Chapter Fourteen - The Silent Treatment  
  
Max was still sitting at her dining room table an hour after Cindy had left. She had papers all spread around her, her laptop humming, every once and a while she'd jot something down on the pile of paper. For the first hour, Logan stayed out of the way. He poked through every nook and cranny of the apartment, checking out every single detail of every single thing. . He poured over the table of framed pictures. His favorite was probably the one of Cindy and another female spraying Max with Silly String. Logan, using his amazing investigation skills, figured it was taken on Max's birthday. There was a large sign hanging in the background with "HAPPY 25th MAX!" in big block letters hanging behind her.   
After about twenty minuets of pouring over her book collection, he walked to the massive stereo. He looked at her collection of CD's noticing her mixture of classical; Beethoven and Mozart, the classics; the Beatle's and Aretha Franklin, ranging up to pre-pulse hip-hop and even a couple of musicals. Deciding it was time to set his plan into motion, he grabbed the most annoying sounding CD he could find, and popped it into the player.   
Blaring rock music blasted out of the speakers at a high decibel, causing Max's hands to jerk on the keys as she jumped. She ground her teeth as she punched the delete key with one finger. "Please turn that off." She said over the noise.   
"What?" Logan shouted.  
"Turn the music off!" Max yelled.  
Logan made some vague hand gesture, signally that he couldn't hear her. Max shoved back the chair and marched to the stereo. She slapped the power button, the music cutting off. Silently she walked back to her computer, sitting down. Taking a deep breath, she began typing again.   
Logan walked into the kitchen and deliberately open and slammed shut several cupboards. "Max, do you have any fruit?" Logan called.  
"What?" She asked, annoyance echoing in her voice.  
"Any fruit?" Logan repeated, doing his best not to smile.  
"Yes, bottom drawer in the fridge." Max replied reluctantly.  
A few moments later, Logan sat across from her, polishing an apple on his shirt. "So, Max, what's the weather been like lately?" Logan asked, taking a bite of the apple with a loud crunch.   
Max ignored him, turning to flip through a few pages on a file. "Ok then, don't want to talk about that. How about, anything interesting happening in sports?" He took another bite to mask the smile that wanted to creep across his face.   
Again, Max ignored him. "Well then, Miss Talkative, I've done the weather and sports. Quickly running out of small talk, all I have left if politics and family. Going to comment on either of them?"  
Again, Max ignored him. Again, Logan crunched on his apple. Deciding small talk wasn't annoying her enough; he stood and walked behind her, leaning over her shoulder, reading what she wrote. Max tensed.   
'Jackpot.' Logan thought.  
"I don't know if you noticed, but I am kinda trying to work here. Do you mind?"  
"Aww, Max, your all tense. Here let me--" He massaged her shoulders for just under one second before she jumped out of her chair. "Hands off." She said tersely, glaring at Logan. "Sorry. You looked tense." He replied, holding his hands up innocently. This was going to be a lot more fun than he thought.   



	15. Take-Out Chinese

Chapter Fifteen - Take- Out Chinese  
Logan gave up on pestering Max verbally. So what he did was stared at her. For four straight hours. He sat in the chair across the table from her, staring at he for four straight hours as she worked. He knew it was bothering her because she never completely relaxed enough to look up at him. When she stretched or moved at all, she carefully avoided eye contact.   
It was about five o'clock that evening, and Max was still not satisfied with the evidence, even with the disk, she didn't think it was enough. There was still wasn't enough evidence to directly link Rodney Delaney to the execution style murder of three police officers.   
The knock on the door startled her out of her deep concentration. Wordlessly she rose from her chair to check to Judas hole.   
"Zack? What are you doing here?" She asked perplexed.   
"Hello? It's Sunday? Bryn's picking up Chinese, and we're all supposed to be working on the Delaney case. Ring any bells?" He said, walking inside.   
"Oh, yeah, some stuff happened, I've had a lot on my mind."  
"It's not like you to forget our traditional Sunday take-out sessions..." Zack trailed off as he spotted Logan, sitting comfortably at the table.   
Zack grabbed Max's arm and dragged her into the kitchen. "I thought he was dead." He whispered.  
"So did I, he showed up at Delaney's party last night." Before Max could finish, Zack had spun on his heel and stormed out of the room.   
Logan had just gotten up to fiddle with Max's computer. He was standing next to it, skimming over the files she had piled up, when next thing he knew he went airborne, slamming into a wall, with Zack holding him up by his neck, cutting off his air flow.   
Logan gagged, his lungs screaming for air. Max ran up, sliding across the floor in her bare feet. She shoved Zack back, causing Logan to fall to the floor. "What the hell is your problem?" Logan gasped, gaining his feet, chest heaving.   
"No, what is your problem? Where do you get off, just showing up after five years?" Zack shouted back.   
Max stood between them, struggling to hold Zack back. "Zack stop! I am dealing with it myself."  
"Why are you defending him, Maxie?! He obviously never cared at all about you!"   
Logan didn't know what it was about Zack's statement, maybe it was the fact that it was what Max probably thought. Maybe it was that Zack had always hated him, not that the feeling wasn't mutual. But Logan snapped. He jumped forward, shoving and unprepared Max to the side with one hand, swinging with the other. They fell to the floor, Logan landing one solid punch before (for which he was proud, he was making a swing at a genetically enhanced killing machine) before Zack fought back. Zack rolled so he was on top of Logan, raising his fist. Before it could come down, Max grabbed it and threw him back. "Both of you stop it!" She said, tears streaming down her face. "This is hard enough for me without the two of you hosing each other off with testosterone!" With that she fled, running towards the bedroom, past Bryn, who'd just walked in the door, holding two fragrant bags.   
Bryn calmly observed the scene. There was Zack, who was now alternating between glaring the door to Max's bedroom and the blond haired man, who was now slowly getting up off the floor.   
Sighing, she shoved the bags of food into Zack's hands before turning and walking wordlessly into Max's bedroom. She may not have known exactly what was going on, but she figured she would find out about it, at a very loud volume, in about five seconds. 


	16. Armastice

Chapter Sixteen- Armistice  
Bryn held Max as she poured out the whole story, from beginning to end, starting with the day she met Logan, ending with Zack and his fistfight in her dining room. Bryn murmured the proper condolences. When Max had been properly comforted, Bryn talked her into coming out and eating some Sweet & Sour Chicken. Max went into her bathroom to put some eye drops in, and Bryn took the opportunity to go have a conversation with her brother and Asshole. He wasn't Logan to her, he was 'Asshole'.   
Bryn walked out into the dining room where Zack and Logan still sat. "Is she okay" Zack asked at the same time that Logan said, "How is she."  
Without answering, Bryn walked up to Zack and smacked him over the back of the head. "This is hard enough for her with out you adding to it." And then she turned to Logan. "Asshole--" before she could continue, Zack grabbed her hand. "Bryn, don't."  
This was not exactly what Bryn had expected. "Huh?"  
"We just talked, and...Well, he had his reasons." Zack said reluctantly. "It wasn't right." He said glaring. "But I guess he didn't have a choice."  
"What?" Bryn asked, "You of all people, as protective as you are of Maxie, you are agreeing with Asshole"  
"I'm not agreeing with him, but I don't think he needs more than two X-5's wanting to kick his ass at the same time."  
Bryn would have commented further, but then Max stepped out of the bedroom. She stalked silently to the counter, pulling a white carton container out of the bag. "I don't suggest either of you two talking to me." She said, like a duchess looking down at a peasant. She walked by the table, picking up her laptop and walking into the next room, not once honoring Logan or Zack with even a glance. 


	17. Full House

Seventeen - Full House  
By an hour later, Logan was up to his ears in genetically enhanced killing machines. If he made it through the evening alive, he was going to be very surprised. He spent the entire time that Krit was talking to him (about god knows what) staring at the back of Max's head. It probably wasn't the smartest thing he had done to date, taking a swing at Zack, as far as winning back Max. Not that he'd really gotten anywhere to begin with.   
Max sat typing away at her laptop, carrying a conversation with Bryn and Jondie, meanwhile resisting the urge to glance back at Logan. She had felt his eyes drilling holes in the back of her head for hours, but she was doing her very best to ignore him. And failing miserably.   
This was how the evening was spent, Max internally denying that that were in the least happy to see the other, Logan thinking that he was only here to check up on Max, and he was in no way falling back into habit of wanting more than he could have.   
And all the X-5's sat around exchanging telling glances that said that both of them weren't fooling anyone.   
So after five hours of working along side her brother's and sisters, with Logan sitting silently in the background somewhere, Max and her partners perfected one last operation to retrieve the final key to busting Rodney Delaney.  
When Jondie stretched her arms overhead and made some poor excuse about being tired, Max glared at each X-5 in turn as they each made excuses to get out of staying there a moment longer. Both Max and Logan knew exactly what was going on and they both cringed.   
Logan had lost his will to annoy Max in that one moment she had run crying from the room after Zack and his fight.   
Max simply didn't want to be alone with him. He was just to freakin' charming to trust.  
As Zack was grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair, citing that he was meeting Paige somewhere, he leaned over close enough to Logan to deliver a clear message.   
"If you hurt her again, make her shed one tear over you, I swear to god, there will not be enough pieces of you left to find."  
  
And when the apartment was quiet, the only sound each could hear was there echoing heartbeats. 


	18. Chipped Shelter

Chapter Eighteen - Chipped Shelter  
Max stared at the closed door, having the distinct feeling that the only thing protecting her from herself had been her siblings. So, avoiding eye contact, she started around the room, collecting the little white cardboard boxes and paper cups that littered the room. Walking to the kitchen, arms full off trash, she was focusing her attention on the ground so she had no excuse to look at Logan. But since she wasn't watching where she was going, she didn't see Logan step in front of her, and she didn't see till too late that she was going to walk directly into him.   
And then she did. She bumped directly into his chest, startling her so she stumbled backwards. Logan grabbed her arms as they windmilled backwards, causing all the discarded Chinese containers to fly everywhere. Max didn't move a muscle, her eyes locked with Logan's.   
It was in that one moment that Max's defenses were down that Logan saw how deeply he had hurt her, how scared her heart was. And he would spend the rest of his life remembering the pain he saw in her eyes. "Max" He said, his voice cracking with emotion. "I'm so sorry." And he slowly leaned down to kiss her, trying to make it up to her.   
His mouth was a mere centimeters from hers, and Max could feel his breath on her lips. The walls that she had erected around her heart were slowly chipping away. For that long moment that his face inclined to hers, she forgot everything but him.   
But then she remembered. She shoved him back, stumbling back herself. "Don't touch me. Stay away from me." Logan could practically see the walls flying back up. She turned, and for the third time that day, fled into her room, leaving Logan to pick up the white cardboard that was scattered around the floor around him.   
  
  
A/N: Okay, here is a rather short chapter, Ill post two because these are both pretty short. I have gotten several comments on how short the chapters are, so I'll explain why. There is a message board I post on, and these stories were written as I posted them on there. This story got over 800 posts in a week, and i had a lot of demand for more...so i made them short so i could get more posts out quicker. My stories such as Extra Ordinary and Forced Promises are a lot longer that these, but this one of my first sucessful fics, so it is shorter. 


	19. Starlight Starbright

A/N: I was going to update on this, but I had a technical difficulty. I couldnt find chapter 19 on my disk, so I thought I never saved it, so I went on the website that I write directly on, and I searched through 800 some posts looking for the damn chapter 19, only to find out that I mis-numbered when I was writing this, way back in the day. So all the headings are going to be one off, but I dont have the time/patience/enrgy to go through and change it all. Just smile and nod like a good little reader.  
  
  
Chapter 20 - Starlight, Starbright  
Max had sat on her bed, just staring out the picture window, watching the stars blink over the skyline of Seattle. Her thoughts were only on Logan, and only on what he meant to her. She hated to admit it, but whenever he even looked at her, she felt a little piece of the protective barrier she had built around herself chipping away. She couldn't resist his soulful looks anymore than she could five years ago.   
And it was killing her, this internal war that she was going through. Every time she felt herself being pulled towards him, pulling towards forgiving him; she remembered the immense pain she had gone through at his hands. She remembered those two days she didn't remember because the grief had been so intense. She thought of how she'd cried after turning on Logan's computer's for the first time and finding out one of his passwords had been her birthday. She remembered going to the cemetery after she'd done her first project, just to sit at Logan's grave and tell him about it. She remembered how she'd stopped going to the cemetery shortly after that because it was like grieving all over again.   
And when she found him in Delaney's office, that one second of sheer joy she felt when he'd said her name. Then that instant when she realized what he had done, and her heart broke again.  
When Logan had died, she'd lost her heart. And she had always believed that it wasn't his fault, other than him driving to fast. She'd always kept the memories of their last morning together, their last kiss of pure innocent love; she kept these memories close at heart. But when he came back, all those memories, the one thing that had kept her from quitting each time she'd been to late or a hack didn't succeed, those memories she'd used were tainted by his deceit.   
And in those late night hours where Max had remembered all the time she had spent with Logan, all the nights she's spent alone thinking of him. Then she thought of what it meant to her that he was back. His being alive had the potential to destroy everything that she'd built for herself in the past five years. But there was one simple fact that Max had realized in that moment that she'd stared into Logan's eyes as he'd stared into hers. She had never stopped loving him. And even after everything, she never would. 


	20. Release

Chapter Twenty One - Release   
  
A/N: This is an alternative name for 'Sweet Monkey Lovin' the Cut Version. DO not read the next chapter if smut offends you.   
  
  
Max didn't know what she was doing. 'I've completely lost my mind.' She berated herself even as she opened the door leading into the main room. 'This is insane. I am insane.' She repeated as she moved silently through the rooms.   
She tied the belt of her while silk robe, still trying to talk herself out of what she was doing. Max found Logan stretched out on the long leather couch. He was half covered by a blanket he had found somewhere, Max didn't know where. He was too tall to fit on the couch, and his feet were propped on top on the arm, his feet bare. His glasses were laid on the coffee table.   
Max had intended on just looking in on him, telling him that he could use the guest bedroom, and then fleeing back into her room.   
But seeing him sprawled across her couch, deeply asleep she couldn't make herself turn and leave. Before she could talk herself out of it, she had moved so she was kneeling on the floor next to him, sitting on the back of her legs. Studying his face, Max was overcome by emotion, to the point that her eyes filled with tears. She reached up and brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead, brushing her fingers over his face.   
Logan drifted slowly awake at the feel of Max's fingers in her face. He blinked slowly to see her beautiful face next to his. "Max?" He asked, unsure if was really awake. A single tear spilled over and trickled down her cheek. Logan slowly sat up, framing her face with his hands, brushing the tear away with his thumb. "Logan." Max whispered. Neither of them knew if it was a statement or a question. Max rose to her knees and wrapped her around Logan's neck, pressing the side of her face into his chest.   
Logan brought his hand up to support the back of her head. Then he pulled her face back, holding her chin. He leaned down, gently touching his lips to hers. When she responded, opening her mouth, touching her tongue to his lips.  
He then lifted her into his arms and carried her into her bedroom, laying her down on the bed, knowing perfectly well what they were about to do would change the course of their lives forever. 


	21. The Smutty Continuation of Chapter Twent...

I am warning everone now. This is a sex chapter. Do not read if you are offended by sex. this Chapter is b NC 17!! /b I can't change the rating without changing the whole Story, so if you dont want to read it, skip to the next chapter when I have the little lines (---)  
  
  
  
Chapter Twenty One and a half - Sweet Monkey Lovin': The Uncut Version  
Logan laid Max down on the bed softly, laying down next to her, leaning over stroke the back of a finger down her cheek. "Max, I have never been afraid of anything more than what you make me feel." Logan whispered softly, running the pads of his fingers over her cheek.   
Max shivered at his touch. "Make love to me, Logan." She whispered back.Of all the emotions Logan expected to feel, alarm wasn't one of them. "Are you sure?"  
She nodded slowly before reaching up and pulling his face down to hers for another slow kiss, one designed to drive a man crazy.   
"I wont hurt you." Logan said as he pulled back again. Max pulled him down again. "I know." She said, but trembled nonetheless. "I'm not afraid of that."  
"Yes you are." And he regretted that bitterly. "But you won't be." He promised fiercely. "All you have to do it tell me to stop."  
"I wont." Max replied. They were both still whispering, as if loud words might shatter the peace they had finally found.  
Smiling softly, Logan kissed Max's brow. "This is going to take a while."  
Max let out a shaky laugh. "I've got plenty of time."  
She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth to his. It was so right, so simply and easily right, to press her body to his, to lift her arms and wrap them around his neck. She shivered again as he slid her robe off her shoulder, but not from the chill of air in the room. Nor was it from fear. "I don't want you to think of anything but me." Logan murmured as he brushed Max's hair back, "No one but me."  
"I'm not. I can't." She said, eyes half closed.  
They kissed again before Logan whispered. "I wanted you from the moment I saw you."  
Max smiled at that. "Almost six years ago."  
"Almost six years ago." He agreed, toying with her lips. Max stiffened instinctively when Logan's hand slipped under the robe, pulling her arms out, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. In moments, the easy caresses of his fingertips had her muscles loosening. When his hand slid down to circle her breast, her body curved to welcome them.   
Like warm rain, the pleasure was soft and quiet, soothing. Both Max and Logan accepted it, absorbed it, and then ached for more, as he slowly undressed her. The cool air of the room flowed over her body, but Max felt only his hands, molding gently, exploring, arousing. His touch lingered, then moved on, lighting flames in which those tiny raindrops of pleasure began to sizzle. When she trembled now, she trembled from the heat, and her breath strangled in her throat.   
There was a sweetness here, a power, which Logan felt as his lips roamed down from hers to the swell of her breast. A feeling that she was completely his, as if they had been lovers for years.   
Her body was like water in his hands, rising and falling with every breath. Logan distantly heard the sound of his name escaping from her lips.   
He knew that he could make her float, as she was floating now, her eyes like smoke, her muscles like warm wax. And he knew that he only had to inch her higher, just a bit higher, to watch her break through those clouds into the storm.   
Max felt Logan's teeth scrape over her hip, and the hand she had been stroking slowly through his hair went taunt. Heat coiled hot in her stomach as his tongue streaked over her. She shook her head as if to will the sudden and incontrollable quivering. Then the pressure built so quickly. She writhed, struggling towards it, struggling away. She tried to call out, tell him to slow down and give her a minute to prepare. But the pleasure gysered through her, spurting molten through her system,   
Logan watched that instant of frantic denial, the stunned panic, then the mindless pleasure. Everything she felt echoed inside of him. As breathless as she, he raised himself over her, raining kissing over her glowing face until she was wrapped around him, until her movements became frantic and his own churning need demanded release.   
"Look at me." He fought the words out of his burning throat. "Look at me, Max."  
And when she did, when their eyes met, he slipped inside of her. Slowly, his hands fisted into the silk sheets, as if he could grip control there, he lowered into her, felt her rise to meet him until they moved together silkily.   
When her lips curved, he buried his face in her throat and took them both over the edge.   
And later, when she lay sleeping in her arms, he wondered if there was ever a time that he hadn't loved her. 


	22. Irrational Rationalities

Chapter Twenty-Two - Irrational Rationalities  
Sunlight spilled over the horizon, rose-colored light brightening the dark sky. Max drifted awake and for the first time in a long time, she was completely disoriented. Then she felt Logan's arms around her and saw that her head was resting on his chest, and she remembered.   
Logan awoke abruptly as Max shoved her self roughly off of him and rolled out of bed, landing on the floor with a thud. "What?" Logan asked voice distorted from sleep. Max was tying the belt to her robe with jerky movements as she sat up. "Was that your plan Logan? What do you want? Do you want Eyes-Only back? Is that why you're here?" She spit at him, turning and ripping the door open.   
Logan jumped out of bed, stepping into his pants as he followed Max out. "Max, what are you talking about?"  
"Did you think that if we slept together we'd wake up and everything would be ok?" She shouted, turning with her fist clenched at her side.   
"No, no." Logan repeated as he tried to step closer to her. She shoved him back.   
"Don't even touch me." She paused a moment "I know, you regret that you never got to sleep with me before you faked your death, so you came back for a few days to tangle the sheets?"  
"Max, I never planned for this to happen. I can't believe you think that I planned this."   
"You can't believe? Well I can't believe that you would fake your own death just to get away from me!"   
"Max, I didn't leave to hurt you! I had no choice!"  
Max grabbed the closest thing to her, which happened to be a small glass vase, a present from Zane on her last birthday, and she let it fly. Logan ducked, the vase whizzing by him, brushing his ear before it hit the wall and shattered.   
"Then tell me Logan, why did you leave? Find a new girlfriend to run away with? Aliens abduct you?"  
"No, none of that." A book flew by, hitting the wall, and falling to the floor.  
"Then what was it!"?  
"I can't tell you, Max, please, I can't tell you!"  
"Zack was right, you never cared at all. You couldn't wait to get away from me could you? Deal's off Logan. Get out." Max shouted, and much to her disgust, tears filled her eyes.  
"They were going to kill you!" Logan snapped. He paled when he realized what he'd just said.  
Max stood silent for a moment. She'd suddenly lost the fire that had been fueling her temper. "What?" She said softly.  
"Nothing. No one. I'll be out in ten minuets." Logan said quickly, turning and walking from the room.   
Max followed him into the living room where he started to pull on his shoes. "No, tell me now." When Logan didn't answer she repeated herself. "Logan, tell me now. I need to know why you left everything. Why you left me."  
"I would be putting you in so much danger by telling you. I can't do that."  
"Logan, please." Max said, he voice shaking with emotion.  
He looked up at her, his own eyes wet. Max turned and was about to flee when he spoke.   
"That morning." He began. "That morning a few minuets after you had left, I received a call from an informant, wanting to meet me. I met him at the designated spot, but I had been set up. Turns out the man I had been investigating found out that I was Eyes-Only and was about to shut him down." He paused again, scrubbing his hands over his face. "He told me he had four men following you, and that if I wasn't out of the country in eight hours, that they'd shoot you."  
Max turned around to face him, shock etched across her features, mouth unable to form words.   
"I had two options. One being I'd just leave. But wherever I would have gone, you'd have found me, and that was too dangerous for you. The man might have been keeping someone on you, seeing if I would try and reach you. Or I could make you believe I was dead, and let you live the rest of your life, alive." Max stared at him, dumbfounded.   
"For five years I tried to forget about you. Tried to make myself think I was doing the right thing. Then I got back to the States and I saw a newspaper article about Eyes-Only still being alive." He laughed mirthlessly. "It's kind of funny that the one thing that drove me away from you, well you kept it alive. And then I found an article about you. And I couldn't stay away."  
"Who... Who was it? Who was the man you were investigating?" Max asked, voice raw.  
"Rodney Delaney. He had his own son killed; I knew he wouldn't hesitate to kill you. I read that you were attending his party and I knew what you were doing. That is why I came back, I was going to try and talk you out of it. But once I saw you, everything that I felt for you came rushing back inside of that one second I saw you."  
Max stood silent, absorbing all that she had just learned. Then she turned and ran into her room, throwing on clothes as quickly as she could. Logan followed her in. "Max, please... where are you going?"  
Max grabbed her old leather jacket out of the closet as she raced to the door. "I...I need to think. I'll be back...later."  
With that she slammed out of the door. Logan stood, staring at the closed door, and then sank down onto the couch, burying his face in his hands with despair. 


	23. Clear Desperation

Chapter 23 – Clear Desperation   
It had been a long since Max had been able to make time to visit the space needle. Lately, she'd barely had enough time to do everything she had to do for Eyes-Only, but Max considered this her day off. Staring at the overcast sky, Max figured she'd deserved it. In just under three days, she found the man she had been working to honor hadn't been dead at all, passed out for several hours, almost lost the opportunity to nail Rodney Delaney, got it back again, broke up a fistfight in her dining room, only to find that she still didn't have enough information to get Delaney, fell back in love with a man she thought had been dead for five years, slept with him, and then ran like hell out of her apartment. All in that order.   
Max spent hours, just sitting alone, her legs pulled up to her chest, head resting on her knees. Finally, after hours of silence, she became sick of the solitude, and climbed back down to the ground, having the urge to talk to someone. She pulled out her cell phone as she approached her car and dialed Cindy's number. "Hey, it's me, can you meet me at Crash in fifteen."   
Cindy found Max sitting at a table in a back corner of Crash, a beer at her elbow, her face on her chin. "'Sup, boo?"   
"God Cindy, I think I've screwed everything up."   
Max spilled out the whole story, including Logan's annoying attempts at conversation, his and Zack's fistfight, up to the fight they'd had this morning.   
"I just can't believe I slept with him. I didn't even sleep with him when I didn't hate him." Max said, sighing.   
"Is that what you feel, hate?"   
Max paused, opening her mouth and closing it again. Finally finding the words, "I don't know, I just don't know anything for sure anymore. It was so much easier to blame him, to hate him. I guess a piece of me still does blame him, even if I know it wasn't really his fault."   
After a moment, Cindy spoke. "Do you want to know what I think, what I see between you too?"   
Max nodded. "He gave up everything, his life, his job, his family, his friends, everything he owned, and he gave it all up for you. Maybe it is time you both stopped running."   
Max sat silent, absorbing what Cindy had just said. Her point have being made, Cindy rose to make a phone call.   
"Max?" Logan's frantic voice echoed over the line as he picked up on the first ring.   
"Cindy." She corrected. "Max's with me."   
"Is she okay?" Logan asked running a hand over his face with relief.   
"She's fine, you might want to take this opportunity to talk to her, I've pretty much--"   
The line went dead as Logan bolted out the door.   
Logan walked into the bar a half hour later, his hair and jacket damp from rain after jogging his way from Max's apartment to Crash. He'd realized when he'd gotten into the parking garage that Cindy still had his rental car. So he'd take off running. He had to see Max, just to see she was ok. Even if she didn't want to see him, he just needed to be sure she was ok.   
He instantly picked her out of the crowd, sitting by herself at a table, managing to look completely alone even in the crowded room.   
Cindy walked up behind him, laying a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "Just go to her, she'll listen."   
Logan nodded mutely. He walked slowly over to Max's table, who either hadn't yet seen him, or hadn't acknowledged it yet. He slid fluidly into the chair across from her, neither of them looking at each other, just sitting in silence.   
After several minutes of silence, Max finally spoke, her voice wrought with emotion. "You can't just expect me to let all of this go, just like that."   
Logan's chest constricted at her words. He had no words, could barely think. Then Max's voice broke through to him once again.   
"But I am working on it." She said with a small smile, finally looking up from the table she had been fixating on. Logan sat for a moment in relieved silence.   
"Where does that leave us now?" He questioned softly. Max didn't answer with words, she simply reached across the table to take Logan's hand and link it with hers. They sat there like that for a moment, simply staring at their joined hands. Max stood and pulled Logan to his feet with her. "Come on, let's go home. You can cook for me and tell me about the past five years."   
They walked out into the parking lot together, still hand in hand. "Did you drive?" Max asked as they approached her car. "Nah, Cindy still has my rental. Nice car." He commented as Max unlocked the doors to the BMW and disabled the alarm. "Well, I am glad you like it, because I used the money you left me to buy it."   
Logan laughed as he slid into the passenger seat with a laugh. "What ever happened to your baby?"   
"Rode it through a eighth story window." Max said nonchalantly as she turned in her seat to back out of the parking space. "Shortly after, I bought myself this, and it became my new baby."   
"Has anyone but you driven it?"   
"I almost gave up my distaste for guns up when I caught Zack sitting in it." Max said changing gears as she sped up onto the street, weaving by a pokey mini-van at a high speed. "No one drives my car." Max said turning to smile at Logan.   
"Uh, Max, watch the road please, your making me nervous." He said pulling on his seatbelt as he gripped the armrest.   
"What? I am a good driver!" Max said, muttering under her breath as she swerved around another car, that unlike her, was following the speed limit.   
They made it home in one piece, luckily, and made there way upstairs. Max sat on the counter as Logan cooked up some pasta creation, they talked all the while.   
They spent all night talking, the uncomfortable silence of the past five days melting away in simple companionship as they caught up on everything that had happened in there lives in the time that they were apart. Logan talked about the year he spent in Japan, relearning how to walk. Max talked about the extensive campaign they had waged against Manticore, and the instantaneous relief she had felt when they had found that Lydecker had left the country.   
And in the early morning hours, when they sat drowsy together on the couch, they both knew that they would never be able to leave each other again.   



	24. Vendetta Manifested

  
  
Chapter Twenty-Four - Vendetta Manifested  
Logan awoke with a jerk later that morning, alone in bed. He never remembered going to sleep, only remembered Max pushing him into bed and laying down next to saying something about not being responsible for his lack of sleep. But now he was alone. He walked out into the living room to find Max tapping away at her computer, now lounging around in flannel pants and a tank top. She was obviously absorbed in whatever she was doing, perched at the edge of her chair, fingers flying, papers scattered all around her. "Well isn't this just a change of position. I vaguely remember someone telling me once that I worked to hard. Ah, the tables have turned." Logan said as he walked up to Max and placed his hands on her shoulder, leaning down to kiss her cheek. When he saw what was on the screen, he stopped. "Max, what is that?" He asked staring at the complex looking blueprints on the screen.   
"Blueprints to the Delaney compound."  
"Max, what for?" Logan said, feeling his heart sink.  
"Simple, I've decided that getting Delaney shut down isn't enough to get him arrested. I am going to personally kill him."   
Logan gripped Max's shoulders and turned her. He saw the murder in her eyes and knew instantly that she was deadly serious.   
"What? No way Max, I am not letting you go through with any insane plan to get Delaney."  
"It isn't as if I haven't killed people before, first off for Eyes-Only, second off for my own personal benefit." She said matter-of-factly as she turned and began typing again. Logan walked around and slammed the top of laptop down, narrowly missing Max's fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"  
"Max no, you can not go after Delaney."  
"And why the hell not? Maybe you've forgotten, I have been running Eyes-Only for five years Logan, even longer than you did. I know what I am doing."  
"Your not doing a hack here. Your using this go after him on a personal vendetta. And I don't even understand why."  
"Why? He took five years away from me, five years away from you. I think the question is, why are you pissed at me for doing this?"  
"Because if they find out I am back, they wont hesitate to kill you. It wasn't threat, it was a promise. They will kill you and I just got you back." Logan said pulling Max out of her chair. "You have to understand, this man is insane. He will kill you in a second, and I am not going to stand back and watch you walk into a suicide mission."  
Max stepped back so she stood a distance away from Logan. "I am going to have at least 7 X-5's with me backing me up, I'm not going to be alone in the least, and you can't try and protect me! I can take care of myself!"  
"So I am supposed to just stand back and let you get yourself killed?"  
"You are supposed to stand back and let me do my job! And who says I am going to get killed? I just told you I am taking every safety precaution possible."  
Logan covered his face with his hands, frustrated.  
"I can't lose you, Max."  
"Logan, I could just as easily get hit by a car walking across the street. You are not protecting me in any way by fighting me on this. I'm telling you I am going to be careful."  
"Does that mean you should put yourself in extra danger? What if they link it to you? What if you get in there, you kill him, and you manage to get out alive? If they link it to you, you'll have the whole Delaney family crime syndicate with a price on your head!"  
"Logan you can not stop me from doing this. You don't even have the right to try." Max said sinking back into her chair and reopening the laptop.   
"Damn it Max! I love you!" Logan shouted.  
Max's fingers fumbled on the keys. Without turning, she spoke. "You've never said that before."  
Logan felt like punching a wall. Or Zack, that had been pretty good at the time. "How could I not?" He whispered. "Why, do you have a problem with that too?" He snapped.  
"No," Max snapped back. Rising out of her chair to stare Logan down. "But it works out pretty nice that I love you too!" She shouted unceremoniously.   
They both paused when they realized what they had said to each other. Logan stepped towards her, reaching a hand up to touch her face. "Hands off." Max snapped, swatting his hand away. "Sorry." He muttered. "I just figured I'd be touching you when I told you I loved you. Since I've managed to screw that up, I thought I'd try that again."  
Max moved into Logan's arms. "Please don't fight me on this Logan. I am going to do it with out without your support."  
"I know." Logan said, rocking them both back and forth, "I love you, Max." He whispered into her hair. "I can't lose you."  
"I love you too. And you wont."  
But neither of them knew the magnitude of Max's decision to go after Rodney Delaney.   



	25. Task At HandTask At Hand

  
Chapter Twenty-Five - The Task at Hand  
"How are you going to get the hard drive out of the office in the middle of this party, without being noticed." Zack asked doubtfully, glancing around the room crowded with people.   
"Out the window, how I went in the last time, I'll go out this time. By the time people notice I am gone, the hard drive and I will be long gone." Max replied easily, leaning back in her chair, pleased. It had taken her a week and a half of constant working to hatch a feasible plan to nail Delaney. And she knew if Zack was pointing out weak excuses like 'can you get out fast enough' that she had hit a winner. She panned the room, studying the people in the room as they studied her plans. Zane was the first to speak up. "Personally, I think this is a very well thought out plan, and the fact that you have arranged sufficient back-up, which is usually your weakest point, demonstrates that you have thought of everything."  
Max smiled softly. "Let's just say I have been convinced to use extra back-up this time." She said, glancing at Logan, who stood in the doorway. He didn't smile back. Ever since Max's plan to kill Delaney had been revealed, Logan had not spoken a word, and had stood, staring directly at Max, disapproval shooting out of his eyes. Logan turned and walked from the room, not wanting to hear another word.   
Slowly, one by one, each person in the room murmured their agreement. Zane, Krit, Jondie, and the rest of the X-5's, with the exception of Zack, gathered up their folders and files, leaving the apartment, agreeing to meet back the next day to finalize plans. All that remained were Zack, Logan, Max and Julia, Max's informant inside the Delaney enterprise. After speaking for a few more minutes with Julia, she left, leaving Max to sit alone in the room with Zack.  
"What are you still doing here?" Max asked playfully as she straightened her own piles of papers.  
"Well I had some news, and I wanted you to be the first to know."  
Max stopped stacking the manilla folders she had been collecting from around the table. She looked up to study Zack's face, which didn't give up much as he was the master at disguising his emotions.   
"Paige's pregnant." He said soberly.   
Max stood still, trying not to express any emotion herself. "How do you feel about it?" She asked softly.  
Then a huge, absolutely ridiculous grin spread across his face. "Other than the complete shock, the fact that *I* am going to be a father, it's pretty cool." He said lamely.   
"Ohhh!!" Max squealed, running over to give Zack a hug. "This is so cool! I am going to be an aunt to more lil' monsters! How'd Paige take it?"  
"She's pissed that she has to stop teaching her various martial arts classes, but then she started crying, which scared the hell out of me, and then she yelled at me, and then she seemed happy. I don't know, she's always been confusing, as are the rest of you females, but this is bound to make it worse." He said laughing.   
After a few more minutes of conversation, Zack grabbed Max's hand. "I know you have been working non-stop on this, and even you need to relax. Go relax, unwind. This is going to be a hard case, even with your good plan."  
Max just shrugged her shoulders. "I'm fine." She said, even as she sat back down to her computer.  
Zack rolled his eyes and exited the room. He changed his mind as he approached the front door, and turned on his heel to walk to the kitchen, where he found Logan pouring himself a glass of water. "Logan, do me a favor."  
Logan glanced up, surprised that Zack was voluntarily talking to him, then realizing that he wanted something from him, accepted it. "Ok." He said.  
"I know you're against Max doing this, and I can understand why. But she is more likely to complete the objective successfully and safely if she has little else to worry about. You f***ing about with her head isn't going to help her stay safe at all."  
Logan stared forward, silent a moment, seeing the truth in his words. "She's stressed out right now." Zack continued. "You might want to pull her away from her computer." With that, Zack turned and strode from the room. 'Mission Accomplished' He thought as he walked out the door. He may not like Logan all that much, but if he willing to take a swing at him, well, then he must be alright. 


	26. Unwinding of the Wound

  
Chapter Twenty-Six - Unwinding of the Wound  
Max was still sitting at her computer, now checking her various untraceable email accounts, when Logan walked back into the room. Without glancing up, she muttered a greeting. Logan didn't say a word, just stared at her for a moment, till she looked up. "What?" She asked, flipping her hair back over her shoulder.   
Logan grabbed Max's hand and pulled her out of her chair. "Come on, we're going out."   
Max tried in vain to pull her arm back. "Let go, I've got work to do." She leaned backwards, resisting Logan's pull, which was dragging her unceremoniously to the door. She stretched back with one hand to grab the door frame. Logan rolled his eyes. He whirled back around and captured Max's lips in a searing kiss that had her arms going limp and falling off the door frame. Then Logan broke away and pulled a stunned Max behind him to the door. She didn't fight anymore, just kind of followed behind as Logan tugged her along, grabbing both of their jackets on the way out. Max followed him into the elevator before her brain started functioning again. "Logan, I had work to do! What was that for?" She shouted. But it was to late, they were already in the garage, and Logan was shoving her towards his rental car. When Max found herself getting shoved into the passenger seat, she didn't know what to think.  
Logan was humming softly as he pulled out of the parking lot.   
Max turned in her seat and stared out the window, not even glancing at Logan. He hummed good naturedly along with whatever song that was on the radio. "What Max, can't take a break? What was it that you said to me once? Blah Blah Woof Woof?"   
Ignoring him, Max wondered if the weather was going to hold up, or if clouds were supposed to move in later. She couldn't remember the weather report.  
"God, the role reversals we go through. If five years ago some one would have told me that I would be dragging you away from a computer, I would have hit them with the keyboard. But I wouldn't stop typing because that would be a waste of time, right?" Logan glanced over at Max, who was still staring out the window. "There it was!" He exclaimed, making Max jump.  
"What?"  
"You smiled."  
"I did not." Max said, scowling.   
"You did too." Logan repeated triumphantly.  
"Did not." Max muttered.  
"Did too."   
"It was a involuntary muscle twitch."   
Logan laughed as he pulled into a parking space outside of South Market. "Ok, you win. Can't fight with muscle twitches. Come on, let's go have some fun."  
At first, Logan had to drag a reluctant Max around, who every few minuets would make a comment about what she could be doing. Then slowly, inch by inch, muscle by muscle, she relaxed to the point, where though she wouldn't admit it, she was having a good time.   
There was that second where Logan had stolen Max a flower out of he florist shop, and Max made fun of him for committing his first crime. And that moment outside the coffee shop where Max, who had a coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other, stood on her toes to give Logan a kiss. Or when Logan had insisted on buying Max the ridiculous looking stuffed animal, claiming it looked like one of the doctors who had treated him in Japan. Like when Max had Logan doubled over with laughter over her tail of getting confused during an investigation of a pimp and finding out it was really Zack, who was working undercover thinking Max was a hooker. It was a entertaining couple of hours, the strain that had been over them melting away for the first time in days.   
  
Neither of them noticed the man trailing them, snapping their picture with a telephoto lens.   
  
  
A/N: There was another smutty chapter after this, but I lost it, and it has no real importance to the plot other than when I originally wrote this, people liked the first edition, and they wanted more. 


	27. Unwanted Publicity

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Unwanted Publicity   
Max awoke the next morning, curled up comfortably in Logan's arms, blankets pulled up over her. It was one of those rainy days where you just didn't want to move, not less move out of the arms of the man you loved and out of a warm bed. But alas, all good things must come to an end, so Max crawled carefully out of the bed, as not to wake Logan, and tiptoed naked to the shower to prepare for the day. She mentally ticked off the things that she had yet to do today as she turned on the hot spray of the shower. When she stepped in, she was wondering if she could talk Logan into making her breakfast, because she was getting pretty sick of Pop Tarts and burnt toast. She turned to grab the bottle of shampoo off the shelf when she saw the face staring at her through the frosted glass of the shower door.   
Logan laughed as he watched Max jolt, bobbling the bottle of shampoo, and releasing a small yelp that was muffled by the steaming water. He slid open the door and stepped in, blocking the spray from hitting Max. He wrapped his arm around Max's waist, "Why do you do that?"   
"Do what?" She asked, annoyed at the invasion.   
"Sneak out of bed?"   
"I didn't, you were asleep. I have things to do."   
"Like what?"   
"Like showering, which by the way, I mastered years ago, and really don't need the help."   
"Awww...your embarrassed."   
"No I am not."   
"You are too."   
"Well, showering is a bit personal don't you think?" Max stated, hoping she didn't sound pentulant.   
"And the sex wasn't?" Logan questioned.   
"That is different."   
"Well we'll just have to combined the two." Logan said as he nipped her wet shoulder with his teeth.   
When they finally emerged from the bathroom close to a hour later, Logan headed to the kitchen to make breakfast and Max opened the front door to grab the newspaper. She was leaning on the counter next to Logan as he pulled out the ingredients to French toast, sipping some orange juice, when she saw the picture.   
'Mysterious Max Linked to Mysterious Man.'  
With a stunned expression, Max stared at the picture of her and Logan outside the coffee shop. The photographer had caught them in that one moment of complete innocence. Max standing on tip-toe, her arms wrapped around Logan's neck, a smile spread across her face, Logan's arms resting loosely on her waist.   
Then Max reached out and grabbed Logan's hand and pointed mutely at the article. Logan stopped what he was doing and looked at the paper, scanning the small blurb, and then surprised Max by laughing. "Well, at least it is a nice picture." Then he turned, going back to his cooking, leaving Max to stare at his back.   
"Aren't you at all concerned that someone will recognize you?"   
"No, not really. I have been dead and gone for five years, and I wasn't all that prominent of a figure before I left. Plus, the picture only gets the side of my face."   
"But..." Max stuttered as she stared at the picture some more.   
"I don't even see why the paper is making a big deal about you being seen out with someone. I mean, are you that important to them?"   
"Well considering the fact that they have never had a picture of me with someone outside of family or friends, I am not surprised in the least."   
Logan stopped stirring for a moment to turn to Max. "What is that supposed to mean? You've never been seen with anyone outside of family or friends?"   
"They have always been concerned with my love-life, god knows why, but they could never link me with anyone because there was no one."   
"Are you saying that in the five years I was gone you never dated at all?" Logan asked stunned.   
"I didn't date anyone long before you disappeared. I didn't date anyone from after that disaster with that Eric guy." Max stated simply   
"Why?"   
"Why would I settle for something other than the one person I wanted? You."   
"But I was dead and you still never dated?"   
"Well, at first it was because it would have felt like I was betraying you, dead or not."   
"But we weren't even involved, really."   
"Are you complaining that I didn't date?"   
"No, I am just surprised."   
"But this picture is just going to ruin my whole rep!" Max exclaimed.   
"Why is that?"   
"All the snotty socialites think I am a ice-queen. This is going to totally piss them off that after all the people they have shoved in my face at these stupid parties, I went out and got involved with someone that they had no control over."   
"Oh poor Max, pissing off the socialites and the crime bosses all in one day. May the drama never cease?" Logan said as he dumped French Toast of out the pan and onto a platter.   
  
  
Rodney Delaney sat in the office of his mansion slowly shreading the picture of 'Mysterious Max' and her 'Mysterious Man' with a letter opener. Of course he already knew that Cale had been back in town, he'd known several days ago after he'd watched the securtiy tapes of his office after the disk had dissappeared. It was a good thing it had been a decoy, but it still angered him that Cale had ignored his specific instruction and was now back in Seattle, dispite his warnings. As the letter opener slid through Max's smiling face he knew it was time to teach Cale a lesson, a lesson he would never forget. 


	28. Final Fight

Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Final Fight   
Max worked through out the day, blocking out everything around her as she put the finishing touches on the plan that would be enacted tonight, which would once and for all end Rodney Delaney's years of corruption and crime. Logan became eerily quiet as X-5's began trailing into the apartment, bringing with them the formal wear clothing that they would need for tonight. Max noticed Logan's silence, and as the nightfall approached and it was time to dress for the event, she grabbed his arm and drug him into her room, shutting the door behind them.   
"Do you have a problem?" Max asked evenly as she crossed her arms.   
"Why do you ask?" Logan asked, refusing to make eye contact, staring at the window over her shoulder.   
"Logan, what the hell is your problem? You act like everything is all fine and dandy when we are alone, and then when I have to work, you get all pissy again. Make up your mind, for Christ's sake!" Max stated with barely restrained temper as she stalked to her closet and drug out a zipped garment bag and threw in onto the bed.   
"I don't want you doing this Max." Logan blurted.   
"Well it is a bit late for that, isn't it Logan, considering I leave in about an hour." Max replied coldly.   
"Max, you have to listen to me. You don't know what this man is capable of."   
"Logan, frankly, I am getting sick of this. If we are going to have any sort of a relationship, you can't doubt me every time I have a job to do. I know what I am doing and you are not going to stop me from doing this. I've been doing Eyes-Only for five years now, and I was perfectly fine before you came bursting back onto the scene."   
Logan stood silent, stung by Max's stinging words. "I am doing this because I care about you. I am trying to help you."   
"You want to help me? Then stay out of the way." With that Max picked up the garment bag and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.   
About an hour later, Max and the rest of the X-5's were ready to depart, leaving Logan and Tinga, who was in charge of communications, back at Max's penthouse to wait. Before stepping out the door, Max pulled out her cell phone and dialed Julia's number, to make sure things were all set.   
And as Max stepped out of the door, Logan had a distinct feeling that things were not going to go as planned.   
  
Inside the Delaney mansion, where party guest were starting to arrive, a man stared at the person sitting across from him as she sat on her phone.   
Julia closed her phone, turning back to her father, "Ok, they are leaving now. They should be here inside of the half hour."   
"Good job, very good job Jules." Rodney Delaney said as he leaned back in his chair. 


	29. Frozen In Place

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Frozen In Place   
Max stood around the party, mentally tapping her foot waiting for Julia's signal that it was all clear. She was anxious to get this over with so she could get home and muddle her way through apologizing to Logan for snapping at him. She was taking all the people's questions about her mystery man's whereabouts in stride, but it wasn't helping her state of mind to be reminded of the picture, when that made her think about the morning they had spent together before their final fight before she left. She wearily glanced around the room, thinking maybe, just maybe, Logan was right and she shouldn't have gotten herself into this.   
Meanwhile, Logan sat in the penthouse, staring blankly at the phone, willing it to ring, willing it to tell him that Max was ok. But something was nagging at him in the back of him mind, something begging to be released from his subconscious. Then it hit him, the woman, Julia, why she looked vaguely familiar to him. Logan bolted out of his chair as he remembered the day that Rodney Delaney had given him the ultimatum, leave or have Max killed. The young woman in the back of the room, not once uttering a word, but unmistakably Julia, Max's informant.   
Logan grabbed his bag, digging through it and grabbing his small handgun, loading the clip with a snap as he took off running, bursting out of the door, past a questioning Tinga, and into the parking garage. He didn't bother thinking about how pissed Max was going to be when she found out her took her car, his only thoughts were getting Max out of the trap she had stepped into.   
Max slipped into Delaney's office discreetly at precisely 9:00. She moved quietly to the desk, waiting momentarily for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. For the second time that she had been in the office, the light snapped on and Max froze. Rodney Delaney sat in the chair that Logan had sat in last time she had been here, a gun pointed steadily at her, his face impassive.   
And before Max could turn to try and flee, she saw Julia out of the corner of her eye. "Julia?"   
"I am sorry, Max. You were a good friend to me." With that she approached, standing right next to Max as they both stared at Rodney.   
"Why?" She had to know why one of the people she considered a close friend had betrayed her.   
"You were getting to close to busting Dad. I couldn't let you do that."   
Max had a moment to let this sink through the shock before Julia jammed the hypodermic needle into her neck and depressed it.   
Max struggled for a moment before she went limp and the world blacked out around her. 


	30. Insanity at Its Finest

Chapter Thirty - Insanity At Its Finest   
Zack stood inside, pretending not to be uncomfortable in his tuxedo, pretending not to wish he was at home with Paige, pretending he wasn't completely sick of all the lonely women who were hitting on him. He glanced down at the watch Jace had given him for his last birthday, and realized that it was Max was three minutes off schedule, and that was two minutes and forty five seconds more than Zack was comfortable with. So you could easily chalk that up on the long list of things that Zack was quickly growing sick of.   
And when he saw Logan burst through the front door, he was fairly sure that everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket.   
Zack walked past the short blonde woman who had been boring him to death and intercepted Logan right before he reached the stairs.   
"What in the hell are you doing here?" Zack asked in an undertone, trying to keep attention off of them, unsuccessfully. The mystery man from the paper this morning had burst into a formal party wearing jeans and a tee shirt, carrying a gun, running like a bat out of hell. People had no choice but to take notice.   
Logan ripped his arm free of Zack's grasp. "Julia is Delaney's daughter." He whispered harshly. Zack dropped his arm, thoroughly shocked. Logan rushed up, taking the steps three at a time. "Where is she?" He asked.   
"She hasn't come out of Delaney's office yet. I was just going to go check what was wrong now." Zack said weakly, still shocked that one of their most trusted friends had betrayed them.   
Logan tore off, taking the steps three at a time, ran down the hallway, then stopped outside of the door to the office. Taking a deep breath, he brought raised his gun, then burst through the door.   
The first thing he saw was Rodney Delaney sitting at his desk, gun pointed at the door and at him. Then he saw Julia standing in the middle of the room. He saw a trail of dark red fabric, and after one long moment, he didn't recognize the crumpled form to be Max.   
"Hello Mr. Cale. Nice to see you again." Delaney said as he rose from his chair, keeping his gun trained on Logan.   
"What the hell did you do to her?" Logan asked taking another step into the room.   
"Oh, she's fine. At least she is for now. My daughter here injected a strong sedative into her neck. That was what, Julia, ten minutes ago?" Delaney skirted the desk as he looked at his daughter questioningly. Julia glanced down at her wristwatch. "Twelve minutes to be exact."   
"Oh how time flies when your having fun." Delaney said with a laugh.   
"What the hell do you think you are going to get away with? You are at a crowded party, and in about five minutes this room is going to crawling with genetically enhanced killing machines that aren't going to take to kindly to you fucking with their sister."   
"Well, I already thought of that. So this is how we are going to start things off." He swung his gun over and fired, hitting Julia squarely in the forehead. Her limp body fell backwards, smashing into a coffee table.   
Then Delaney pulled his gun back to Logan. "If I'd shoot my own daughter in the head, you know I wont hesitate to put a bullet into you." His voice had lost the creepy playfulness and was replaced by an icy exactness.   
"I told you not to come back. I told you to stay the hell away."   
"Well, opps, that seemed to have slipped my mind."   
"You don't want to be witty with me, Cale. You made a huge mistake coming back here. You should have stayed dead. You even more to loose then than you did now. Back then you weren't even involved with Miss Guevera. Now all the newspapers are talking about her new boyfriend. You broke your promise, and now you have to pay."   
"Do you really think that you can get through me, and the eight trained killers that are by now right outside the door, and get out of here in one piece?"   
"Well, those are some bad odds in my case aren't they? Well, I have a gun pointed at you, and you have one pointed at me, this is like a Mexican stand off. But I know your to chicken shit to use it. So what do you say I change the odds a bit more. What do you say I let you love, but I shoot Miss Guevara instead? Sure, I'll be dead, but you'll live the rest of your life know that if you wouldn't have came back she'd be alive."   
Delaney swung the gun so he pointed it at Max's unconscious form.   
Logan pulled the trigger without blinking. Delaney jerked back as red bloomed on his shirt. His gun dropped limply from his fingers as he dropped to his knees. Logan walked calmly over to him as he fell to the floor. Logan grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him up off the floor. He brought his face close to Delaney's. "Listen, because I am only saying this once. You took five years away from me. You're not going to take another second. After I walk out of this room, I am never going to give you another thought. I hope you have a nice long stay in hell." Logan dropped him back to the floor.   
Zack, Krit, and Jondie burst into the room, shocked at what they saw. Rodney Delaney was laying dead on the floor, Julia was dead, her body near the door with a gunshot wound to the head, and Logan was kneeling next to Max's lifeless form.   
Logan slipped his arm under Max's head, supporting her neck in the crook of his elbow. He lightly tapped her face with his hand.   
"Come one Max, come on, don't leave me." He whispered.   
The other X-5s began to move around them, a flurry of motion and sound. Jondie picked up the phone and dialed the police to report a murder/suicide of Rodney and Julia Delaney. Zack pulled out his cell phone and called Tinga, telling her to get all the X-5's back to Max's ASAP. Krit went around the room, gathering all evidence that anyone had been there other than Julia and her father. Krit timed them, telling them when time was up. Max still hadn't regained conciseness so Logan put an arm under her knees and gathered her into his arms.   
They moved silently into the hall, taking the back exit into the parking lot. Zack took the keys to Max car and drove it off as Logan laid Max across the back seat of the car and Krit and Jondie piled into the front seats. They pulled out of the parking lot as four police cruisers swung in front of the house, lights and sirens on full.   
They made it to the hospital in record time, Logan hopping out of the car with Max still in his arms. He moved quickly into the admitting desk where a nurse who had spotted him coming in the door, ran up with a gurney.   
"She was given some sort of poison, I don't know what." The nurse nodded as she doctors ran up and began working over Max's unmoving body. Krit ran up to the gurney and they both moved with them as the nurses and doctors started moving down the hallway. "She is a genetically enhanced prototype." Krit rattled off. "If she needs blood or anything like that you need to come to me or my sister who is coming in now. She has been taking monthly betaseraton injections to control a neurological condition." They both dropped back as the doctors pushed through a door and a nurse held them back saying they couldn't go any farther.   
Two hours later, all eleven X-5s were sitting in the waiting room, along with Original Cindy, Sketchy, Herbal, Paige, and several of Max's unidentified friends. Logan sat apart from them all, isolated. He had his elbows on his knees, face in his hands.   
A nurse dressed in a stark white uniform walked into the room. Zack jumped to his feet and walked over. "We are waiting on word about Max Guevera."   
"Are you family?"   
"Yes." All of the X-5s, and Cindy, answered at the same time.   
The nurse lifted a brow. "Miss Guevera is now resting comfortably."   
"Can we see her?"   
"Not all of you can go in there, but I am willing to let one of you stay with her till she wakes up."   
Zack was about to walk in, but then he saw Logan who still hadn't looked up at all. He turned and walked over to him, "Cale," Logan looked up. "Go in their and be with her."   
Logan weakly stood on shaky legs. He slowly walked towards the nurse. "Tell my boo I said 'hi'." Cindy shouted after him.   
Logan walked down the hallway with the nurse. "Hello, I am Anna, I have been working on Max since she has gotten in here. She had a toxin introduced into her blood stream, and we were able to kill it with basic antibiotics. She hasn't woken up yet, but that is to be expected, her body is, in a way, recuperating from the poison."   
Logan nodded weakly. "Your not family are you?" Logan shook his head.   
"Well this is what I am going to do. It is a general rule that you should only have five minutes with her, but I am going to pretend that I don't know your in there." Anna said as they stopped outside of the closed door of Max's room. "Thank you." He said gratefully, his voice rusty.   
He walked into the room slowly to where Max lay, pale and asleep, in the hospital bed. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down, taking Max's limp hand into his. He pressed it against his cheek, studying her face for signs of life. He laid his cheek on her chest and closed his eyes, fighting back tears. He's managed to stay in control even as Delaney pointed the pistol at Max, but seeing her laying in the hospital bed was too much for him to handle.   
After about forty-five minutes, Max's eyes fluttered open, blinking at the harsh lights that had invaded her quiet oblivion. She felt a weight on her chest and looked down to find Logan's head resting on her, his eyes closed, his face ashen, deeply asleep.   
She lifted an arm, which ended up being a harder task then she thought, and ran it through Logan's messy hair.   
His eyes flew open, and he sat up slowly. Before he said a word, Max spoke. "Your not going to say 'I told you so'are you?"   
Logan tentatively smiled. "Only if you promise never to do anything that stupid again."   
"Now why would I do that? If I never did anything stupid, then there would be absolutely no entertainment in our lives."   
Logan smiled, tears filling his eyes again. "You scared the hell out of me."   
"I love you." Max said in way of an appolgy.   
"I love you too. I am sorry I got all bitchy at you before you left."   
"Well, I am sorry I got all bitchy at you for getting bitchy at me. If I would have listened, I wouldn't be here now."   
They sat there in silence, hands clenched together. "Do you think Eyes-Only could use another informant?"   
"No. But she could use a partner." Max answered softly.   
Logan smiled softly as he kissed her hand. "You know." He said conversationally. "We're going to have to get married you know."   
Max closed her eyes as a peace ran over her. "That is truly the most half-assed proposal I have ever heard in my life."   
"And I wouldn't love you if you couldn't lay there and laugh in my face because of it." Logan said with a small grin.   
"How does next Sunday sound to you?" Max asked, toying with Logan's fingers.   
"Too far away. Saturday." He replied.   
"Agreed."   
"If there is one thing I can say it is that I am never going to lead a boring life."   
"Absolutely Not. I would never allow it." 


	31. Epilouge- In the Rain

A/N:Okay, this was kinda the dedication chapter to all the people who really helped me out on this story when I was writing it months and months ago. There was Karen (my partner in crime), Jeanne (cookies!), Anna (who was the nurse in the last chapter), Alejux (the resident man whore), Skye (more cookies!) and others. Anyways, this part wont make a whole hell of a lot of sense to anyone who wasnt on the MB that I was writing for. Just smile and nod and read on to the wedding part.  
  
Epilogue - In The Rain   
The following Friday night, Bling, who had since made his peace with Logan, threw him a surprise Bachelor Party at Crash. Complete with an Irish stripper named Jeanne and bad rock music. "You know, when Max finds out about this, she is going to kick you're a**, right." Logan told Bling with a wirily as he took a sip of his beer.   
"Well, I pretty much handled her. She should be getting the surprise of her life right about now."   
At Max and Logan's apartment, Max and her closest female friends were gathered around the living room, drinking wine and being all together more sophisticated than Logan's party. And then there was a knock at the door.   
Cindy swung open the door to reveal a man in a pre-pulse police uniform on. He walked into the room carrying a tape player. He placed it on the coffee table and handed Max a small card.   
'Max, have a nice time on your last night as single chick. Bling'   
Then the man spoke. "I am Alexjux, and I will be your arresting officer for this evening."   
Max raised a brow questioningly as he hit 'play' on the tape player.   
"I'm to sexy for my shirt, I am so sexy that it hurts." ALEJUX sang as he pulled off his shirt. Max and the rest of the girls in the room roared with laughter. Skye, Karen, and Anna, the nurse from the hospital, all pulled out thick piles of ones as ALEJUX ripped off his pants.   
Max was curled up in a little tiny ball, gasping for air because she was laughing so hard. "Boo, if Logan has a stripper at his party, I am going down there."   
Max couldn't reply as she rolled around laughing harder.   
A few minutes later, Max's cell phone rang, and she dug it out of her bag, still laughing hysterically. "Hello?" She managed around giggles.   
"Max?" Logan asked questioningly, sitting at a table in the back of Crash. While all the other guys there were ogling Jeanne, the Irish stripper, he missed Max, even though he'd just seen her two hours ago.   
"Logan...Police.... stripper..." She managed as she fell to the floor laughing again. Her giggling was infectious as Logan found himself laughing at her laughter. They talked for a few moments after Max had locked herself in a quiet room and had finally controlled the giggling, and after they had signed off, they both could barely wait till they would get married on the roof of Foggle Towers tomorrow.   
It would have been fitting to have beautiful weather on her wedding day, but of course, nothing works out the way it was supposed to. Logan stood in the living room of the penthouse, staring at the overcast skies with mild curiosity on how Max was handling the weather.   
Max stood in her bedroom, Cindy zipping up the back of her simple, knee skimming white dress, staring at the window. Logan told her nothing would ever be average in their lives, and he'd been right, because she was about to go get married in the rain.   
Max heard a knock at the door, and Cindy cracked it open. "Go away Logan, your not allowed to see her." Cindy yelled at him through the small opening in the door. Max heard Logan's voice through the door, but it was muffled as he was speaking low and though a three-inch space. "Lover boy wants to know if you want to get have the ceremony in the apartment cause of the weather?"   
Max ran the brush through her hair one last time as she stepped away from the mirror. She brushed past Cindy and opened the door. "We are getting married on the roof, and nothing is going to stop us, I don't care if Lydecker himself shows up and wants to take part in the festivities." With that she brushed past Logan and out of the apartment.   
Cindy laughed at Logan's facial expression. "I bet you are wondering what the hell you've gotten yourself into, aren't you."   
"That pretty well sums it up now doesn't it."   
Half way through Logan's vows it started to pour down rain. They both started chucking as, with hands joined, Max recited her vows, water streaming down her face, her hair getting plastered to her head. All of the guests, the X-5s, Bling, Cindy, Kendra, Herbal, Sketchy, and a couple of Logan's nicer family members, stood on the roof waiting for them to finish so they could get out of the rain, but had no choice but to laugh with the bride and groom, who stifled laughter through out the entire ceremony.   
When they were pronounced husband and wife, they kissed, still laughing, as the rain poured down, soaking them as they began their life together.   
  
A/N: And, I'm out. Go read my other stuff. Review. Bye.  



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